Cohen and the True History
Collecting history as it happens brings up an interesting dialogue, one I liken to the journal-syndrome. Cohen’s ideology that the breath of history as it is happening, 9-11 as an example, should be saved and recorded, may not be the most logical practice. Consider yourself keeping a journal. You start with your day, the details, the mundane events, and then suddenly, a crisis occurs, a mini catastrophe. You record a full range of emotions. A few days later, your attitude may change. Over more time your perspective changes again. Which is the real, true historical moment and feeling? Had someone interviewed me hours after the second plane attacked, and then again the next day, and then again a week later, then again a month later, (as the patriot act was ripping citizen’s right’s in the name of terror), a couple months further, and let’s just move along to today. Each would differ in opinion, knowledge, worldview. But this is only for me, because, if you talk to some people today, they may feel exactly the same as they did the first hour. But as a historian, which version is the true story.
I pose the question to Dan Cohen, that perhaps when blogs disappear there is a reason. Maybe the person’s conviction isn’t what they wished to be left to posterity and historic record.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/collecting/
http://www.dancohen.org/publications/#future_of_preserving_the_past
